Shimla: The Congress on Monday announced the names of their candidates for the upcoming November 4 assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh.

The AICC after prior consultations with party president Sonia Gandhi has released the list of 68 candidates for assembly polls.

The Congress has renominated 21 out of 23 sitting MLAs this time, while 22 new faces including four female candidates have managed to find place in the list.

Congress Candidates list

The list includes 25 Rajputs, 13 Brahmins, 17 SC candidates, 3 ST, 3 OBC and 7 others. The number of reserved seats has increased from 16 to 17 seventeen. Thural seat in Kangra district has been abolished while a new constituency of Manali has been added in Kullu district.

Churah-SC - Surender Bhardwaj

Bharmour-ST - Thakur Singh

Bharmouri, Chamba - Pawan Nayyar

Dalhousie - Asha Kumari

Bhattiyat - Kuldeep Singh Pathania

Nurpur - Ajay Mahajan

Indora-SC - Kamal Kishor

Fatehpur - Sujan Singh Pathania

Jawali - Neeraj Bharti

Dehra - Brig Rajinder Singh Rana

Jaswan-Pragpur - Nikhil Rajour,

Jawalamukhi – Sanjay Rattan

Jaisinghpur-SC - Yadvinder Goma

Sullah – Jagniwal Pal

Nagrota - G S Bali

Kangra - Surender Kumar

Shahpur - Maj Vijay Singh Mankotia

Dharamshala - Sudir Sharma

Palampur-Brij Bihari Lal Butail

Baijnath-SC - Kishori Lal, Lahaul & Spiti-ST – Ravi Thakur

Manali - Bhuvneshwar Gaur

Kullu - Sunder Singh Thakur

Banjar - Karan Singh

Anni-SC - Ishwar Dass

Karsog-SC- Khub Ram

Sundernagar - Sohan Lal

Nachan-SC - Tek Chand Dogra

Seraj - Tara Thakur

Darang - Kaul Singh Thakur

Jogindernagar - Surender Pal Thakur

Dharampur - Chander Shekhar

Mandi – Anil Sharma

Balh-SC- Prakash Chaudhary

Sarkaghat- Rangila Ram Rao

Bhoranj-SC - Ramesh Dogra

Sujanpur - Anita Verma

Hamirpur – Narendra Thakur

Barsar - Inder Dutt Lakhanpal

Nadaun – Sushvinder Singh Sukhu

Chintpurni-SC - Kuldeep Kumar

Gagret – Rakesh Kalia

Haroli - Mukesh Agnihotri

Una - Satpal Raizada

Kutlehar - Ram Das Malagar

Jhanduta-SC - Biru Ram Kishore

Ghumarwin - Rajesh Dharmani

Bilaspur - Bumber Thakur

Sri Naina Deviji - Ram Lal Thakur

Arki - Sanjay Awasthi

Nalagarh - Lakhvinder Singh Rana

Doon - Ram Kumar

Solan-SC - Dhani Ram Shandil

Kasauli-SC – Vinod Sultanpuri

Pachhad-SC - Gangu Ram Musafir

Nahan - Kush Parmar

Sri Renukaji-SC – Vinay Kumar

Paonta Sahib - Sardar Onkar Singh

Shillai - Harshwardhan Chauhan

Chopal - Subhash Chand Manglate

Theog - Vidya Stokes

Kasumpti - Anirudh Singh

Shimla - Harish Janartha

Shimla Rural - Virbhadra Singh

Jubbal-Kotkhai - Rohit Thakur

Rampur-SC - Nand Lal

Rohru-SC - Mohan Lal Brakta

Kinnaur-ST- Jagat Singh Negi

Virbhadra dominates candidate list

The released list is highly dominated by the Himachal Pradesh PCC President Virbhadra Singh who has been nominated from Shimla Rural constituency. With this, the Congress has also broken the practice of not allowing sitting MPs to contest in state elections.

A member of Lok Sabha, Singh had resigned as Union Minister in June, a day after a Shimla Court had framed corruption charges against him. He also has his stamp on a majority of the seats for the 68-member Assembly announced by Congress.

His supporters include close relative Rana Anirudh (from Kusumpati) and MLA Sudhir Sharma (from Dharamshala) in the list. Unfortunately, Virbhadra’s wife Pratibha Singh and HPCC vice-president and former minister Harsh Mahajan have failed to get tickets this time.

Vidya Stokes, Kaul Singh Thakur figure in Congress list

CLP leader Vidya Stokes and former state party chief Kaul Singh Thakur have been nominated for the upcoming state assembly elections.

While Stokes has been fielded from Theog, Thakur is the nominee from Darang. Thakur had made way for Virbhadra Singh as PCC chief recently.

Election Notification

The poll process for the November 4 Himachal assembly elections will start with the issue of notification on October 10 when candidates will start filing nominations. While October 17 is the last date for filing nominations, scrutiny will be held on October 18. The last date for withdrawal of candidatures is October 20.

Delimitation played major role

The delimitation of assembly constituencies influenced the choice of Congress candidates for Himachal Pradesh assembly polls.

About a dozen kin of former Congress leaders have been accommodated and four women and four persons from royal background have found place in the lists.

HPCC president, V.B. Singh had to shift to newly created Shimla (Rural) constituency as his traditional Rohroo seat has been reserved for Scheduled Caste while the leader of the opposition Vidya Stokes, who had shifted Kumarsein in 2007, has reverted to her old Theog constituency as Kumarsein constituency has been scrapped.

The sitting MLAs, Yograj (Pragpur) and Sohan Lal (Kusumpti) have not been given tickets as their reserved constituencies have been opened this time but Sudhir Sharma and Rakesh Kalia, whose Baijnath and Chintpurni constituencies were reserved for SC, was accommodated and given ticket from Dharamsala and Gagret respectively.

Similarly, former minister Kuldeep Kumar, whose Gagret reserved constituency has be dereserved, was shifted to Chintpurni.

The boundaries of at least two dozen constituencies have been altered while fifteen constituencies renamed.

The sequence of districts has also been reversed and Kinnaur (ST) constituency, which was at number one, has been made the last (68th) constituency and Shimla district which followed Kinnaur is now second from the bottom.

New faces in Congress list

Vijay Singh Mankotia, who has been re-inducted into Congress after he patched up with Virbhadra Singh, will contest from Shahpur. Mankotia had levelled corruption charges against Singh and his wife and had come out with a CD in that regard a few years ago.